


wake up little sleepy head

by buries



Series: new jersey 'verse [2]
Category: Friday Night Lights
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Friendship, Future Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-15
Updated: 2012-09-15
Packaged: 2017-11-14 06:56:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/512545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buries/pseuds/buries
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>she’s never liked getting caught running away.</i> sleeping habits in new jersey. future fic. season four au.</p>
            </blockquote>





	wake up little sleepy head

**Author's Note:**

> i haven't seen season four so things go au after season three. written to the prompt _wish i didn't love you_ for un_love_you @ livejournal. title from paul oakenfold ft. brittany murphy's _faster kill pussycat_.

It’s a couple of months, but New Jersey doesn’t change Tyra.

Tyra packs what she came with – a small, battered suitcase packed lightly with jeans and shirts and a couple of books she’s re-read over and over during her lifetime – and leaves with that. She grabs her keys from its hook beneath the calendar.

She locks the door behind her.

 

*

 

It’s four weeks after they move here, to New Jersey, into a house that isn’t exactly anybody’s. Jason rents because he has hopes of finding a better house in a different state with Erin and Noah far away from anyone’s history. New Jersey holds Erin in the palm of its hand just like Texas did with him.

Jason avoids being permanent. He rents a car because buying one is out of his price range at the moment and he buys the necessary furniture. The car has its dents and a ghost of a smell that haunts it. The furniture is almost falling apart. Tyra never thought Tim’s truck would ever be the diamond in the rough as it sits idly on the driveway.

Tim sleeps on the couch as she takes the only bedroom available. There are books piled to the ceiling and coat hangers scattered around in the corners. She thinks of them as cobwebs that are supposed to connect Jason to his dream home. 

 

*

 

Jason is in New York every day. 

She’s in the kitchen, washing the dishes. Tim’s in the shower, tempting her to turn the hot water tap on full blast. She doesn’t.

“Tyra,” Jason’s at the threshold, “are you doin’ anythin’ special today?” He has a smile on his face that brightens up the world.

She smiles, placing the soapy plate on the dish rack. “I don’t think so,” she turns to look at him, pushing her hair behind her ears. It protests, slipping back to brush against her cheek the second her fingers let go. Bubbles linger in the strands.

Jason seems to smile wider. “We could window shop,” he shrugs. He does this thing where he sort of rolls, runs his hands over the wheels, like he doesn’t want to invest too much in his proposal. She knows what it’s like to put all her eggs in the one basket – but she also knows what it’s like to not believe in that basket.

Despite her dreams of rolling around in boxes of Jimmy Choos and Valentino dresses, she declines.

 

*

 

Tim’s back starts acting up.

“The couch isn’t any good, Riggins,” Jason says, wheeling across the carpet to where Tim’s rising slowly from lying down. Tim looks as though he’s had too much to drink the night before, his hair askew and his cheeks pressed with faint lines of the pillow’s zipper seam. “Take the bed.”

Jason means his, of course. He’s been more than prepared to swap places with Tim. “Nah,” Tim says, with a quick glance at her. “I’m alright here.”

 

*

 

Tim goes with Jason to New York. “Get me some Jimmy Choos while you’re at it,” she calls after them. Jason laughs. Tim makes a comment about Big Foot. She sighs and doubts they’re window shopping.

She has nothing to do. Jason forbids her to do any cleaning, which leaves her with nothing. She doesn’t like walking around the streets without one of the boys. The cars that drive up behind them ignite a fire that she wishes to be put out within her.

Sitting down on the couch, she pushes Tim’s blanket to the side. She lies down to test it, to put herself in Tim’s shoes. It’s not pleasant. The couch is lumpy in all the wrong places, and she can barely fit comfortably on it. 

Getting up, she walks to the kitchen to snatch Tim’s keys off the rack tacked to the wall beneath the calendar. Each square is blank.

She drives to the shopping complex and buys ten different pillows. She buys two for the price of one; Tyra makes sure to buy the pink feathery one.

 

*

 

Tim experiments with each of the pillows. He punches them lightly, fist curled lazily, like he doesn’t even need to think about it. He collapses down on them, his head hitting them pretty hard. He piles them up after her suggestion, testing the feel of his neck each time. 

“You didn’t touch the pink one,” Tyra leans against the doorframe. Jason’s in the kitchen grabbing himself some water. 

Tim looks up at her through his hair. “Do I look like Landry Clarke?”

She cocks her eyebrow. He sighs, pushing the pillows off the couch and grabs for the pink one he’s shoved underneath it. 

In the end, the pink feathery one works best.

 

*

 

Tyra’s developed the habit of waking up in the middle of the night for a glass of milk. She never liked drinking milk in Texas, but she figures it must be the change of location. Momma always said she felt different in Dallas, lighter sometimes.

Tim shuffles on the couch with a few groans. She thinks about finishing her milk, leaving him be, but New Jersey has latched onto her and she finds herself walking towards the couch. The light of the kitchen follows her in.

He throws an arm over his eyes. She stands with one hand on her hip as the other holds her glass. “You okay?”

He sits up. “Gettin’ there.” He pushes against the feathery pillow that’s buried underneath another. She knows that he’ll never get comfortable, not with the stiff arm on the couch.

“When?” She knows this couch is uncomfortable to sleep on. She’s fallen asleep on it during the day and woken up with her neck aching from being slept on the wrong way, despite the number of pillows.

Tim doesn’t answer.

Placing her glass on the dining table, she places both hands on her hips as she looks at him on the couch. His legs fall over the side as they lose their grip on the other couch arm. His arm dangles off the side awkwardly, much like a branch that’s almost snapped off the tree, but not quite. His other arm is lost, unsure of where to go. It looks as though he can’t fit on the couch. “Stop being such a dumbass,” she says, pulling him up by the elbow. 

“I’m okay on the couch,” he slurs, tired. He fights her, using his weight to keep him anchored on it.

Tyra rolls her eyes and eventually pulls him to his feet with a grunt. “You’re gonna sleep with me because I am not throwin’ my own back out on that couch.”

Tim grins. “If it was that easy to get you –”

“Grow up,” she sighs. She doesn’t need to pull him anymore but she keeps her fingers wrapped around the crook of his elbow. She turns off the kitchen light and navigates herself through the hallway in the darkness.

Reaching her room, she flicks the light on as Tim shuts the door. She doesn’t give him a glance as she pulls back her sheets and pushes her hand through her hair, feeling the knots. “Don’t get any ideas.”

Tim runs a hand through his hair. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

 

*

 

Erin brings Noah over as well as a few linens her parents kept in their closet. 

Tyra and Tim stay in the kitchen as Erin and Jason talk. She tries not to listen, but Jason talks of the future as Erin tries to stunt it.

When Erin leaves, Jason appears with Noah in his lap. His eyes are closed and his hand grips as much of Jason’s wrist as it can. Noah takes the bedroom down the hall, to the left, the one with the soft paged picture books and the wind chime by the window.

 

*

 

Tyra won’t admit it but Noah sort of freaks her out.

She’s sitting against the wall beside Jason, her legs spread out. “He likes you,” Jason says from the corner of the room, looking down at her. They’re watching Tim’s favourite show, _Keeping Up with the Kardashians_ , with Noah asleep against Jason’s chest. 

Before, when he was awake, Tyra moved from the couch to squat in front of him. She was going to ask if Jason wanted anything, but she got sucked in. Before she knew it, Noah was playing with her fingers and Tim’s throwing the pink feathery pillow at her.

Tyra hugs the pillow to herself as she watches Jason watch Noah.

 

*

 

Jason wakes up before everyone else. Even if she’s up at five, he’s there, reading the paper or writing something for work. 

The couch is bare every time.

She thinks Jason may know what’s going on, but he doesn’t say anything. He spends his spare time with Noah, and when he’s in New York, she does.

Noah has Jason’s nose and temperament. He likes _Oprah_ just as much as his dad does.

On the third day she’s left alone with him, they fall asleep on the couch. Her neck aches when she wakes up, _The View_ a shrill to her ears, but Noah’s at peace on her stomach.

 

*

 

She stops getting up in the middle of the night for a glass of milk. That doesn’t mean she still doesn’t wake up.

It’s a week after _that_ – Tyra doesn’t know what to call it. They have some sort of routine that reminds her too much of what Lyla Garrity used to be about. She sleeps on the left as Tim sleeps on the right, sometimes stepping over the boundary she’s laid out secretly.

His hand is a ghost against her back. Sometimes she’s too afraid to move, hence her temporarily stopping her milk escapades. Temporarily because this isn’t going to last; nothing ever does.

Tyra’s started counting to ten to will herself asleep, to stop the itch to get up and have a glass of milk. She remembers that just because Tim’s asleep before his head hits the pillow doesn’t guarantee he’s out like the dead. He’s a lighter sleeper than her.

She moves her foot. Tim curls up behind her and kisses the back of her neck.

Down the hall, Noah cries for the second time.

 

*

 

She gets off the bus on the corner of a street Tim’s GoogleMapped. She comes here, sometimes, because there’s a park a street away. When she has Noah and the day is sunny, she takes him there.

She doesn’t know why she got off here. Her determination to settle back in Dillon escaped her as soon as she had looked out the window and spotted the upcoming street. She remembers the peace she found there, how she liked sitting on one of the benches and watching the kids play around in the sand. Noah has a habit of eating sand.

Jason’s at the bus stop, which isn’t surprising. “Timmy told me you’d pull a stunt like this,” he says with a smirk. His eyes don’t waver from hers.

She tries not to look at him. Placing her bag on the ground, she squints her eyes against the sun. “Hi,” she says for a lack of anything better. She’s never liked getting caught running away.

“Why don’t you come on home and talk about this?” Jason moves towards her, then stops. He’s smarter than anyone gives him credit for. He was once the observed but now he’s the one observing and, truth be told, he’s too good at it. “C’mon,” he holds out his hand, “you can’t just leave and break the heart of a boy who’s half in love with you.” He grins like he used to before his accident, the sort of grin that suggests that what he’s saying is a secret that half of Dillon knows, but still, it’s a secret with all its secrecy and so forth. It gives her a false sense of safety because she knows he’s talking about a little boy when she thinks of an older one.

She looks at his outstretched hand. Nothing has ever looked safer.

Tyra steps forward and takes it.


End file.
